Reduced Power in Fronto-Parietal Theta EEG Linked to Impaired Attention-Sampling in Adult ADHD

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

Abstract

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults is understudied, especially regarding neural mechanisms such as oscillatory control of attention sampling. We report an electroencephalography (EEG) study of such cortical mechanisms, in ADHD-diagnosed adults during administration of Test of Variables of Attention (TOVA), a gold-standard continuous performance test for ADHD that measures the ability to sustain attention and inhibit impulsivity. We recorded 53 adults (28 female, 25 male, aged 18-60), and 18 matched healthy controls, using 128-channel EEG. We analyzed sensor-space features established as neural correlates of attention: timing-sensitivity and phase-synchrony of response activations, and event-related (de)synchronization (ERS/D) of alpha and theta frequency band activity; in frontal and parietal scalp regions. TOVA test performance significantly distinguished ADHD adults from neurotypical controls, in commission errors, response time variability (RTV) and d' (response sensitivity). The ADHD group showed significantly weaker target-locked and responselocked amplitudes, that were strongly right-lateralized at the N2 wave, and weaker phase synchrony (longer reset poststimulus). They also manifested significantly less parietal prestimulus 8-Hz theta ERS, less frontal and parietal poststimulus 4-Hz theta ERS, and more frontal and parietal prestimulus alpha ERS during correct trials. These differences may reflect excessive modulation of endogenous activity by strong entrainment to stimulus (alpha), combined with deficient modulation by neural entrainment to task (theta), which in TOVA involves monitoring stimulus spatial location (not predicted occurrence onset which is regular and task-irrelevant). Building on the hypotheses of theta coding for relational structure and rhythmic attention sampling, our results suggest that ADHD adults have impaired attention sampling in relational categorization tasks.
Original languageEnglish
Article numberARTN 0028-21.2021
JournaleNeuro
Volume9
Issue number1
Number of pages20
ISSN2373-2822
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Fields of Science

  • ADHD
  • adult
  • attention
  • EEG
  • inhibition
  • TOVA
  • DEFICIT/HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER
  • CORTICAL OSCILLATIONS
  • NEURAL OSCILLATIONS
  • SUSTAINED ATTENTION
  • VISUAL-CORTEX
  • FRONTAL THETA
  • ALPHA-PHASE
  • PERFORMANCE
  • PARIETAL
  • PREDICT
  • 515 Psychology
  • 6162 Cognitive science

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